


nobody knows me at all

by wtfoctagon



Category: BanG Dream! Girl's Band Party! (Video Game)
Genre: F/F, and kanon being... kanon, awkward accidental smooch at the end, it's just a lot of, misaki being a sweaty teenager trying to wrangle together enough emotional vulnerability, to tell kanon how much she appreciates her
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-28
Updated: 2018-05-28
Packaged: 2019-05-14 18:35:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,252
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14774994
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wtfoctagon/pseuds/wtfoctagon
Summary: After Misaki suffers heatstroke during one of their outdoor concerts, Kanon threatens to quit the band unless they let Misaki "sub in for Michelle" for the rest of the summer. Misaki tries to comfort her, but really, she has absolutely no idea what to say; her comfort zone has always been minding her own business. She's not exactly accustomed to other people standing up for her.





	nobody knows me at all

**Author's Note:**

> title from "Nobody Knows Me At All" by The Weepies

After getting stuffed in a bear costume and forced to DJ for an insanely rich and stupid classmate’s harebrained attempt at a band, one would think that Okusawa Misaki wouldn’t find very many things particularly shocking or astonishing anymore. Sure, unexpected, maybe, a little surprising, perhaps, but nothing would ever top how  _ flabbergasted _ she was when she was roped into this whole fiasco—

At least, she thought so until she finds herself sitting in the rehearsal room and listening to Matsubara Kanon legitimately  _ yell _ at their bandmates. 

Not that Kanon’s never raised her voice at them— she’s the kind of person who ends up crying if her emotions get overwhelming in any direction, really, so they’ve heard her plead or wail on certain unfortunate occasions. But they’ve never heard her really and truly  _ shout _ in  _ anger.  _ Misaki can feel her hat start to slip off her head, just as off-kilter as she feels right now. 

“Why can’t you ever think about how Michelle might feel?” Kanon demands, hands balled into fists. Misaki stares up at her, still seated on the bench that Kanon just jumped up from; she’s still crying, to a degree, eyes watering, but her voice doesn’t so much tremble as  _ crack _ with frustration— “we don’t even know if she’s going to be okay!”

Hagumi looks like she’s about to start crying too. “But— Kano-chan-senpai, Mii-kun said that she was okay…”

“For now!” Kanon actually  _ stomps _ her foot— Misaki jumps a little. “But what happens the next time we have an outdoor concert? Or a venue without air conditioning? What if she collapses again?”

“Please, kitten, don’t fret, it’s going to be alright,” Kaoru tries, “we’ll take every precaution—”

“No! That’s not good enough!” Kanon says, and Misaki feels like her brain’s being blown out the back of her skull at hearing those words come out of  _ Kanon’s  _ mouth. “If you don’t let Misaki-chan sub in for Michelle for the rest of the summer, I’ll—” she gulps in a huge breath and clenches her eyes shut.  _ “I’ll quit the band!” _

Misaki’s too busy trying to tell if her eyeballs have popped out of her sockets to register that Kanon runs out of the studio until a second afterwards. 

“Wait— Kanon!” Kokoro, of course, sprints out after her right away, which means that Hagumi does too. For a second, it’s just Kaoru and Misaki in the silence, both just gawking at the door. 

Until Kaoru decides to open her stupid mouth, inevitably. 

“Ah, how fleeting…” she does that stupid gesture where she covers her eyes then flicks her hand out in ‘dramatic chagrin’. “It seems we have been inconsiderate to Michelle and Kanon’s deepest feelings… Misaki,” she says, turning to Misaki with a flourish and Misaki barely has time to whisper  _ oh boy _ to herself. “Though you may not be as closely concerned with the goings-on of Hello Happy World, I implore that you help us retrieve Kanon, so that we might—”

_ Oh my god.  _ Misaki is already out the door before Kaoru finishes. 

She power walks through the studio lobby, fixing her hat on her head, wondering  _ what  _ she’s even going to say to Kanon—  _ thanks for being worried about me, I guess?  _ It sounds terrible. She’s not sure what to do about it. She’s never been good at comforting people, or even just talking to people, really— her comfort zone has always been minding her own damn business.

(Not that she’s even been able to stick a toe in her comfort zone at all lately.)

After fifteen minutes of wandering through the streets, steaming alive in her dark clothes, slightly panicking because oh god how can one girl have gotten so lost the  _ second _ after stepping out of the studio— Misaki  _ finally  _ finds Kanon by the park, sitting on a bench underneath a tree and crying. 

She sighs, tugging her cap off and running a hand through her hair to try and air her scalp out a little as she trudges up. It’s so  _ stinking  _ hot that she’s going to get heatstroke again if she’s not careful. 

“Kanon-san,” she says, “there you are.”

Kanon flinches, hands clenched in her skirt as she squeaks and looks up. 

“Misaki-chan!” Her face crumples with a fresh wave of tears and she springs out of her seat, arms outstretched— Misaki intercepts her just in time.

“Ah, please—” she takes a step back, holding her hands out. “Please don’t hug me, I’m disgustingly sweaty right now.”

“Oh…” Kanon stops, with her arms sort of half-folded back to herself like an awkward baby deer stopped in its tracks. “Sorry…”

“No, you don’t—” Misaki sighs. “You don’t need to apologize. Why don’t we, uh…” her shoulders sag as she looks over Kanon, who has currently folded into herself all the way now and is wringing her hands just in front of her chin while staring at her feet. “Why don’t we stop by the convenience store nearby to cool off and grab something to drink?”

Kanon sniffles, wipes at her eyes before nodding meekly. Misaki continues to try and come up with a nicer way of saying  _ what’s gotten into you?  _ while she presses her hat back on and pulls out her phone to text the rest of the band that she found Kanon (before the Tsurumaki FBI sends out a professional search party or something). 

“Alright,” she says, pocketing her phone. “Come on.”

Kanon nods again, but makes no move to start walking— Misaki just kind of… awkwardly goes with her first instinct and extends her hand towards her without thinking. There’s an incredibly sour pang of regret when Kanon reaches out to hold her horribly sweaty hand that she definitely should have tried to wipe off on her shorts before offering. 

Well. Nothing she can do about it now except try to retract her hand and make everything a thousand times more awkward, which she isn’t going to do.  She holds Kanon’s hand as gingerly as she can while starting to walk them towards the convenience store, wanting to shrivel in on herself more and more as the space between their hands get progressively sweatier. 

Walking through the glass sliding doors of the 7-7-7 is like salvation and she tries to let go of Kanon’s hand without seeming too hasty, beelining for the cold drinks aisle and nabbing a packet of kleenex on the way. She stands in front of the coolers, trying to seem casual as Kanon comes up behind her.

“What do you want, Kanon-san? It’ll be my treat.” 

“Oh, I’m… I’m alright, thank you.” 

Misaki glances at her. She’s still not making eye contact.

“You sure? I don’t mind, you know.” She throws in a laugh that sounds stilted and  _ awful.  _ “You like tea, right? How about the, uh…” Misaki scans the rows of drinks— think,  _ think,  _ she can’t actually be so inconsiderate that she can’t remember  _ one  _ of the million different teas that Kanon talked about, right? Corralling the three idiots all the time is tiring but she has to have  _ at least  _ enough brain cells left to remember one thing from all of Kanon’s enthused explanations.

“Iced milky earl grey?” That  _ sounds  _ right. She glances back again and  _ bingo,  _ Kanon is looking inquisitively over her shoulder, still a bit shy as always but she’s got that small raise of her brows that she can’t hide when she’s genuinely interested in something. 

“Oh…” Kanon says. “Maybe… I mean, I do like it, but, you don’t have to, Misaki-chan…”

Misaki just opens the cooler to reach in and grab the iced tea as well as the iced coffee a couple rows down. “Don’t worry about it.” 

Kanon makes a small bundle of incredibly quiet protesting noises that die down when Misaki turns around with a smile. “Why don’t you go sit down at one of the tables, and I’ll go buy these quickly?” 

Another set of mumbles before Kanon nods— god, for an upperclassman, she’s… unreasonably adorable. She reminds Misaki of… well, basically any timid baby animal, really. Probably a baby penguin, considering her love of marine animals and impossibly soft, fluffy hair. 

Misaki pays for the drinks and packet of napkins before turning and joining Kanon at the table tucked into the corner of the store. 

“Here you go,” she says, setting the items on the table and sliding the tea and napkins towards Kanon. 

Kanon starts fumbling with the napkin packet, sniffling. “Th-thank you, Misaki-chan…”

“Don’t worry about it…” Misaki takes her hat off again to fan herself for a second before setting it down on the table and cracking open her coffee can. The first wave of cold liquid caffeine feels like finally being able to take a breath after being boiled alive and she sets the can down heavily, letting out a long sigh of relief as she slumps back into her chair.

She glances up when she hears Kanon giggle quietly; the older bandmate is cradling her bottle of iced tea in both hands, smiling into the lip of it. 

Misaki straightens up somewhat. “What is it…?”

“Huh? Oh, no, I just—” Kanon hunches into herself a smidge more. “You’re always so tired, it makes me happy to see you relax sometimes.”

Kanon says it with such a— a well, such a shyly  _ happy _ smile, and Misaki coughs— what the  _ hell  _ is she supposed to say when someone just… says that straight to her face? 

“Ha, well, that’s…” she laughs nervously and rubs the back of her neck before clearing her throat. “I’m glad you’re feeling a bit better…” 

Kanon wilts a little at that, staring down at her bottle and picking lightly at the label. “I’m— I didn’t mean to cause so much trouble… I’m sorry.”

“No, don’t worry about it, hey?” Misaki tries, “We were just surprised, is all. I don’t think I’ve… ever seen you actually get angry, Kanon-san.”

Kanon sniffles again. “I’m sorry.”

“You don’t have to apologize! A-and,” Misaki stammers, drumming her fingers on the table. “I kind of appreciated it, you know? It was really nice of you to stand up for me… but, uhm…” Wow, why is she so  _ bad  _ at this? “You don’t have to worry so much… I don’t really mind. I’ll just be careful to take more breaks inbetween sets. It’s not worth it to get so worked up about.”

She proves herself to be just the Worst Ever at comforting a friend because Kanon looks like she’s going to cry again, her shoulders starting to tremble as her hands tighten around the bottle of tea. 

“No, it’s too dangerous!” Kanon shakes her head so vigorously that Misaki’s worried for a second that her tea is going to slosh out all over the table. “What if you faint again, Misaki-chan?”

“Well, if it happens, it happens,” Misaki says in her most soothing voice which… probably isn’t very soothing at all. “It’ll kind of suck that the concert will get cancelled again, but it’s not a huge deal, right?”

When Kanon looks up at her, her face is crumpled into a half-sob and her eyes are big and glistening with tears about to unleash themselves in big, theatrical globs. 

“Not a big deal?” she squeaks, and it’s somehow meek and outraged at the same time. “You could have _ died _ , Misaki-chan!”

Misaki laughs wryly. “That’s a bit of an exaggeration, don’t you think?”

“It’s not!” Kanon pulls another kleenex out and blows her nose daintily before coughing. “I looked it up when you were being taken to the hospital. Heatstroke can—” another kleenex, used to wipe her eyes this time— “cause organ failure and death if not treated immediately—” she hiccups. “We were lucky that the people in black suits were able to drive you there so quickly! Otherwise you might have— you could have—”

Misaki blinks as Kanon starts shaking apart into another set of napkins. 

Well,  _ alright. _ Okay okay okay. That’s a… a bit scarier. No wonder Kanon was crying into her lap during the entirety of her hospital visit. Misaki takes a long swig of her coffee before trying to talk again.

“W-well, I mean, I ended up being okay, and…” she reaches out for a half-second, torn between patting Kanon’s shoulders and trying to avoid cringing to death at the thought of clumsily attempting and failing to console her. “It’s going to be okay, Kanon-san.” 

Kanon hiccups as she wipes her nose with her fifth bundle of tissues. 

“I was— s-so scared when you collapsed, and then—” she sniffles deeply. “I’m sorry, I’m such a mess right now… I’m sorry you always have to deal with me being such a crybaby…”

Misaki rests her hands on the table, tilting her head a little. 

“I don’t… really consider it  _ dealing _ with you, Kanon-san. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with being emotional— I mean, there are so many worse flaws to have than just feeling too much, you know? And honestly you’re such a breath of fresh air compared to the others,” she snorts weakly. “I’m really just grateful to have you around most of the time.” 

Kanon stares at her for a moment, her blotchy flush suddenly getting pinker. “Misaki-chan…” she says with a shaky voice, bottom lip trembling as a fresh wave of tears starts to well up again. Why is Misaki so  _ bad  _ at comforting people??

_ Think, idiot, think!  _ She scrambles through her half-melted brain to try and find something to say that  _ won’t  _ make everything worse, though considering her track record she should really just shut the hell up at this point. “I— “ ugh, this is hard to do when she doesn’t even really get  _ why _ what she said made Kanon  _ more  _ weepy.

“I’m sorry,” Kanon says again, wiping at her eyes and nearly halfway through the tissue packet now. “I need to—”  _ hiccup,  _ “stop crying, I’m sorry…”

Misaki watches as she starts to inhale and exhale slowly, trying to calm the tremor in her breath. Sitting there in her wispy pale blue dress, dainty hands wiping at her eyes, one hundred percent delicate frills and willowy softness, Matsubara Kanon is so…  _ resilient, _ Misaki thinks. Sure, she might burst into tears at the drop of a hat, but it never seems to actually stop her. Misaki imagines it would be fairly hard be the kind of person who gets easily overwhelmed. But here Kanon is, a drummer in a band with three of the most overwhelming characters in the world, soldiering on through all the crazy nonsense that gets thrown at her. 

“To tell you the truth, it made me kind of happy,” Misaki says, looking down and idly running her fingers up and down the sides of her coffee can. “Not about you crying, or yelling, obviously,” she corrects with a cringe. “But… like I said, I don’t think I’ve ever seen you get angry. The fact that the first time you’d argue with the others would be when you were standing up for me is… kind of nice.” 

She trails off the end of the admission and pauses for a moment before her eyes widen as she realizes what that might sound like. “Not that— not that I  _ want _ to see you argue with everyone over me, I just—” ugh,  _ words! _ She slaps her hands over her upper cheeks and eyes, wishing she’d put her cap back on so she could pull down the brim to hide her face. Resting her elbows on the table with her hands still jammed onto her face, she just… decides to spit out whatever coherent thoughts she can string together. 

“I’m not— I’m not really… familiar with people looking out for me. My mother’s really busy most of the time, so I’m used to taking care of myself and my little sister.” Breathing in deeply, she drags her hands down her face before exhaling slowly, leaving her hands in a kind of cone pressed against her face by the bridge of the nose and down the sides of it with her thumbs against her jaw. “It was just… kind of new, I guess, when you stood up for me. I’m pretty much resigned to always dealing with my own problems by myself. When you did that... it made me feel cared about.” She pulls her head away to interlock her fingers and rests her mouth down on the backs of them. “So... thank you, Kanon-san.”

With her chin tucked against her hands, her head bobs a bit as she says the last bit, but she says it nonetheless.  _ Finally.  _ She wonders just when it was that she started being so afraid of being honest that it takes her this much bumbling around to work up the nerve to deliver a simple thank-you. 

She glances up hesitantly and latches onto the thinnest thread of hope that she hasn’t screwed everything up even worse by oversharing because now, Kanon has stopped crying. She’s actually sitting up ramrod straight, hands holding her iced tea tightly, brows furrowed and mouth set in a very… determined looking frown.

(Determined for… what, exactly?)

“Kanon-san, what…” she lifts her head and unlaces her fingers before laying her hands on the table—

Which ends up being a mistake because as soon as they’re within reach, Kanon lurches forward to grab them.

“You don’t have to go through things alone anymore, Misaki-chan!” Kanon blurts out,  _ squeezing  _ Misaki’s hands in a pulverizing grip that Misaki wouldn’t have expected in a million years. “I’m— I’m gonna look out for you from now on!” 

_ Excuse me? _

“K-Kanon-san, wh—” Misaki’s squawk is choked off as Kanon grips her even  _ tighter.  _

“I know I’m not very reliable,” Kanon squeaks loudly, “b-but I’m gonna try to be a real senpai to you! That’s a promise!”

_ Hgrk.  _ Kanon squeezes  _ even  _ tighter, making fierce eye contact and it takes Misaki a few seconds to get her vocal chords to work properly. 

“Okay, okay, Kanon-san, I get it, could you please—” she croaks, “please stop crushing my hands.”

“Eh?” Kanon looks down at the hands crumpled in her own. “Oh!” She lets go immediately, cradling her hands to her chest and looking a little teary. “I’m so sorry! I didn’t mean to— oh gosh, I’m so sorry, Misaki-chan!”

“It’s fine,” she coughs with the best smile she can manage under the circumstances as she starts wringing the blood back into her fingers. “Don’t worry about it.”

“I’m sorry,” Kanon says anyway as if her anxiety’s pressing her into it for good measure. “Are you okay?”

“Of course,” she laughs. “You didn’t actually hurt me. You’re just… a lot stronger than I thought,” she says with a weak grin. “Though I guess I shouldn’t be so surprised since you  _ are  _ our drummer, huh?”

Kanon makes one of those intensely flustered faces that’s usually reserved for when Kaoru’s flirting with her— it only lasts for a few seconds, not long enough for Misaki to figure out why before she beams blindingly at Misaki, nodding vigorously.

“Yeah!” She squeaks, and Misaki isn’t sure just what she’s saying yes to— “I’m strong so I’ll— I’ll take care of you, okay?”

That doesn’t even make sense— Misaki has no earthly idea what she’s talking about now, but that doesn’t really matter because suddenly Kanon grabs her iced tea and just  _ chugs it—  _ flipping it completely bottoms up before slamming in back onto the table and standing up, taking her now empty bottle and pile of used tissues to the trashcan on the other side of the convenience store. Misaki just— stares, because oh god, why is Kanon sometimes just as unpredictable as the rest of the band? She exchanges a bewildered look with the cashier for a moment before Kanon’s tugging at her hands again, gently this time but with insistent enthusiasm nonetheless. 

“Come on, Misaki-chan! Let’s go back to rehearsal!” Kanon honest to god  _ hops  _ a little bit in place. “I’ll— I’m gonna scold all of them real good until they agree so that you can perform without being in Michelle!” 

At this point, Misaki knows better than to resist when she’s pulled out of her seat and tugged through the glass doors by her hand, just glad that she managed to grab her cap off the table and jam it onto her head in time. A little bit of a change of pace in that her kidnapper isn’t Kokoro or Hagumi, but still. If she can just get her damn phone out of her pocket without dropping it, that’d be nice.

“W-wait, Kanon-san,” she stumbles as Kanon pulls her along, trying to unlock her phone with her free hand. “We should let them know we’re on our way, we have no idea if…”

Forty messages from Kokoro, fifty-two from Hagumi, and fourteen from Kaoru.

Dear god. 

“Misaki-chan…?” Kanon asks, slowing to a stop. The chalky and brittle dread she feels must have spread to her face. That’s nice.

Misaki swallows and starts scrolling through the messages, perishing bit by bit as she reads the sordid story of how the other members of HaroHapi went back to the studio to brainstorm how to cheer Kanon and Michelle up, and then somehow set an amp on fire? The details aren’t clear since the messages jump from a simple update to just screaming. Misaki doesn’t even actually want to know the specifics. All of it cuts off at around the same time, and Misaki would be worried if not for one extremely ominous message from the blocked number that she’s gotten Tsurumaki FBI calls from. 

_ [The issue has been resolved.] _

Misaki sighs. 

“I think everyone went home for today, actually,” she summarizes as she pushes her phone back into her pocket. “Why don’t we call it a day too, and I’ll walk you home?”

Kanon looks like she’s about to say yes, maybe even out of reflex, before she clamps her mouth shut and shakes her head with another squeeze of Misaki’s hand.

_ “I’ll  _ walk  _ you  _ home, Misaki-chan! Y-you can depend on me now!” She says with her bravest face before pulling Misaki down the street again and Misaki just… 

It’s not that it’s not cute. It’s  _ adorable.  _ Kanon’s determination to be a responsible senpai, no matter how nonsensical and slightly clumsy, is touching and maybe even charming in its own way. She’s got such a soft voice— such a soft  _ everything,  _ really, from her mannerisms to appearance, and the way she tries to be staunch is so… contradictory. But also incredibly appropriate, because Kanon is just like that— almost like a frail bunch of forget-me-nots that might bend in a storm but stay steadfastly planted, nonetheless. 

It’s just that it would be more profound if Kanon weren’t heading in the exact opposite direction to the subway station.

Misaki sighs, for the millionth time of the afternoon. “Kanon-san, actually…”

 

* * *

 

They manage to get to their station without further incident. Well, no further incident other than the fact that halfway through the train ride Misaki realized that Kanon’s been holding her hand the entire time and wow, how can someone’s hands be soft  _ and  _ calloused? And seriously, when was the last time that she held hands with someone like that other than her little sister?

She’s still having a very minor meltdown by the time that they get off the escalator and step into the lukewarm sunset air. Kanon has made no move to let go of her hand and doesn’t seem like she will be in the near future but Misaki’s hand is getting kind of clammy again and oh god— 

Oh. They’re five blocks down a street that doesn’t lead to either of their homes. 

“Kanon-san,” she says, stopping and goddammit the way that Kanon’s skirt kites lightly around her legs as she turns, tugged by Misaki’s hand, hair flouncing a little in the late afternoon breeze is, uh… it’s… picturesque. “We’re going the wrong way.”

“Oh.” Kanon deflates like a sad jellyfish. “I’m sorry…”

“You don’t need to apologize!” Misaki squeezes her hand for lack of a better gesture of reassurance. “I should have been paying more attention, too.”

Kanon sniffs and shakes her head, staring at her sandals. “I was trying to be more reliable, but I… I can’t even manage to walk you home.” 

Misaki just laughs tiredly as she starts walking them the right way, towards Kanon’s house. 

“You really don’t have to, you know,” she says. “To be honest I’m not sure where all this is coming from…?” She looks at Kanon. “You’re plenty reliable. I’m pretty sure I would have lost my mind already if you weren’t around.”

“But I want to do more for you than that,” Kanon whines softly. “You do so much for us, Misaki-chan. You compose all our songs, write out all the music sheets for us, book all our live shows, and you’re always keeping everyone in line enough to actually rehearse.”

“Well…” Misaki shrugs. “Someone’s gotta do it. I’m pretty sure that one of the Suits would hop into Michelle to take over even if I quit.”

Kanon shakes her head. “It wouldn’t be the same. And it’s not just… it’s not just the things you do for HaroHapi.” She swings their clasped hands between them a little. “You’re so kind, Misaki-chan, and you’re always taking care of me…”

Again with the straightforward compliments that are just… one hundred percent genuinely delivered, right to her face, zero sarcasm. Misaki coughs. At this point she’s pretty sure she’s allergic to honest praise.

“I mean… you’re kind of hard not to be nice to, Kanon-san,” she says, rubbing her neck. 

“But you’re not just nice.” Kanon steps a little closer into Misaki’s space. “You’re always making sure I get heard, even when the others talk over me at first. You slow things down for me when everyone starts getting too excited, and you always check in to see if I’m doing okay…”

Well, yeah, sure. Misaki makes everyone shut up when she notices that Kanon is trying to say something, or shouts the three stooges down when she sees that Kanon’s starting to get a little overwhelmed, but that’s not really much to write home about. Kanon is… so, so soft. Anyone would feel terrible just leaving her to the mercy of the three most awfully excitable people in the world.

“I mean, that’s just common decency. I’m not exactly the most charitable person…” an understatement, Misaki will admit. She’s a lot farther on the sarcastic brat end of the spectrum.

Kanon leans in even closer, almost pressed up against Misaki’s side now, her other hand coming up to lightly rest on Misaki’s arm just below the elbow.  _ Jesus. _

“That’s not true. I’m really grateful for you,” she says, so quietly that Misaki almost doesn’t hear it. “When you collapsed, I promised myself that I’d do more to show it. I want to be there for you, too.”

Misaki looks over at her, but can’t see what expression she’s making— she’s got her chin tucked towards her chest, and her hair falls over her face, hiding it from the angle Misaki’s at. 

“... That really scared you, didn’t it?”

Kanon nods. Misaki sighs, stopping them once again, and Kanon jumps apart from her with apologies already in a traffic jam in her mouth.

“I’m— I’m sorry, Misaki-chan, I didn’t— I wasn’t—”

“No, I—” Misaki reaches out to grab Kanon’s hand again, panicking lightly. She  _ loves _ coming off as annoyed when she isn’t really and scaring someone that she very much wants to comfort. “I wasn’t—”

Everything that’s coming out of her mouth is just going to be more of a hot mess anyway so she does something that she’s only ever brave enough to do as Michelle— she holds Kanon’s shoulders before pulling her in and wrapping her arms around her in a hug. 

And she immediately thinks to herself that this is— wow, this really— this is really different than hugging someone while in a bear suit, because she can actually feel the way that Kanon fits against her surprisingly perfectly, the way that Kanon almost seems to wilt into her with a sigh as she folds her arms against Misaki’s back to press herself even closer— and her hair is fluffy and soft against Misaki’s face and smells a little like lavender and—

… Huh. She should really do this more often.

Kanon sniffles, burying her face into the crook of Misaki’s neck, and Misaki just kind of really likes how she’s just a little bit shorter. But eventually, the novelty starts to wear off and Misaki starts getting a little fidgety again. How long are hugs supposed to last, normally? Not that she wants to pull away, exactly, but how long is too long before it gets a little weird that she hasn’t tried to end it yet? What’s the hugging protocol for situations like this one? Why is Misaki such a socially inept goblin that she doesn’t know this?

Misaki feels another surge of gratefulness when Kanon squeezes her lightly before starting to let go, thank god. Turning her head towards Kanon with a smile, she tries to think of a reassuring remark in time to deliver by the time they’ve pulled apart but her thought process implodes when she feels Kanon kiss the corner of her mouth.

And by that she means that half of their lips are overlapping, not enough to qualify as a full mouth-to-mouth kiss, but enough that it really definitely can’t be passed off as a cheek kiss, either. It’s kind of funny, because she almost feels like she’s astral projected out of her body to watch some awkward teenagers slowly process the fact that they just half-kissed each other. 

Kanon is the first to jump away with a squeak, covering her mouth as she starts to turn so red it clashes with her dress. “I— I wasn’t— I didn’t—” she takes a few steps backwards. “I— goodnight!” 

And with that she sprints off; Misaki almost calls out, trying to stop her from getting lost but then she sees Kanon’s apartment within sight so… she should be fine. Probably. Hopefully. Misaki doesn’t have enough control over her limbs to do much about it if she’s not fine. 

Eventually, she manages to crank her body around to the direction of her own house, walking home with creaky knees. Her phone pings in her pocket and it takes her about ten steps to stop being a weenie. 

_ [I’m so sorry, Misaki-chan,]  _ it reads,  _ [I just wanted to give you a kiss on the cheek as a thank you, and I didn’t think you would turn your head too, and… I hope I didn’t make you uncomfortable.] _

Misaki watches the typing dots pop up and then die down about three times before she decides to reply.

_ [It’s okay, Kanon-san. It was an accident.] _

She takes a deep breath before typing the riskiest text she’s ever sent.

_ [Besides, I didn’t mind.] _

The reply only takes a few steps. 

_ [Oh. I’m really glad, then.] _

_ [Yeah. Don’t worry about it! I’ll see you tomorrow at rehearsal.] _

_ [Okay. Goodnight, Misaki-chan!] _

The small chain of heart emojis that comes through right after makes her trip and drop her phone like an idiot.

 

* * *

 

Later that night, she’s in bed blinking at her ceiling— frankly a little fascinated with how she can’t seem to stop thinking about the half-kiss and the heart emojis and the way Kanon smiled at her— when she remembers something.

“Ah,” she mumbles. “My coffee…”

**Author's Note:**

> come yell about bandori with me at misakan0n.tumblr.com or @wtfoctagon on twitter


End file.
